Tagged 'Super Bowl'

Content marketing may get a lot of buzz these days - but it's as old as advertising itself.
In part two of my conversation with longtime New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott, we continue to talk about how social media has paradoxically fueled growth in television viewership - especially for events like the Super Bowl.
But as part of this wide-ranging farewell Q&A with Elliott - who retired in December after nearly 25 years of covering advertising for the Times - we get into sponsorship advertising, as well as so-called content and video marketing.
Surprise: None of this is future-forward at all. Indeed, it's a return to the golden age of advertising. But while it sideswipes the problem of ad-skipping technologies and an ever-expanding universe of digital distractions, it comes with some considerable challenges of its own.
Photo: New York Times
Click Here to Download: Q&A WITH STUART ELLIOTT: WHAT I SAW AT THE REVOLUTION (PT 2) - THE RISE (& RISKS) OF CONTENT MARKETING
(Approx: 5:40)

The advertising world released a collective gasp when news hit that Stuart Elliott - the longtime advertising columnist for the New York Times - was accepting a buy-out package and would retire.
After nearly 25 years of covering advertising for the Times, not to mention stints at USA Today and Ad Age before that, Stuart and his column had become must-read for puissant, timely insights on Mad Ave.
And what a quarter century it was. From the early 1990s to today, the ad industry went from analog everything to digital domination; from "Married with Children" to "Modern Family;" and from bigger-is-better, to small is the new black.
"Who could or would have thought in the early ’90s that 20-odd years later the hegemony of television, for decades the most powerful ad medium, would be under siege, or at least, in question" Stuart wrote in his final column December 18.
"Ratings data, the currency of television, is growing problematic because viewership is more difficult to measure when people use mobile devices instead of TV sets; or watch shows online, as streaming video or as video-on-demand. And it is easier than ever for viewers to ignore or avoid traditional commercials; popular streaming services like Netflix are... Read more

If you were part of the 100 million viewers who tuned in to CBS to watch the Super Bowl this year, ask yourself this: Who was the advertiser you saw the most? It’s likely that CBS definitely ranks high in your memory. Not only did CBS receive honors for having the highest-rated ad during the Super Bowl (its Person of Interest ad that aired at 10:31 p.m. EST won a household rating of 47.4, according to Kantar Media), but the network also significantly increased its advertising efforts since the Super Bowl of 2012, with 13 ads for its own programming between kickoff and the first half, compared to last year’s six.

The live polling that USA Today performs annually with focus groups has proven itself meaningless. This year GoDaddy.com’s “Perfect Match” advertisement scored dead last on the newspaper’s Ad Meter meanwhile the company posted record sales for a Monday following a Super Bowl commercial. What is USA Today missing?
USA Today’s Ad Meter needs to be brought into the 21st century. Traditionally, they have focused on a small sample group of viewers to gauge ad performance. This year, in an attempt to update their analysis they opened up that sample group to viewers that registered on their online portal. It was likely an attempt to get a better read of consumer reactions, but with more than 8,000 participants, they still missed the mark.
The inherent flaw in their analysis—the same one they’ve had since the Ad Meter was first published in 1989—is in the way they measure advertisement success. Knowing whether a person “liked” or “disliked” an ad is no way to gauge if it got the job done for the advertiser. USA Today needs to go deeper to understand the winners and losers.
In Networked Insights’ analysis of the Super Bowl ads and celebrities, social data insights revealed a different viewpoint. GoDaddy.com was... Read more

First up, kudos to CBS for ‘getting it’. Steaming live video to tablets is an absolute no brainer. There were almost 50 million tablets sold world wide last quarter. That is a lot of consumers.
So, let me say ‘thank you’ to CBS on behalf of the millions (I am betting that there were millions) of consumers who took advantage of the live stream. It certainly provided consumers the flexibility and choice we deserve when it comes to watching the biggest sporting event in the country.
Now, if you were only watching the big game on your tablet that would be fine. You would be very, very happy.
However, I made the mistake of having the television on at the same time as having the live stream on my iPad on my lap (I am sure many others did this as well).
The issue - and I don’t know if it was my connection or the WiFi I was on or if it is a technical limitation of live stream - but the stream to the tablet lagged the television coverage. It was not a short lag, it was considerable. At one stage in the first quarter, I got out the... Read more